A different year
by Starrarose
Summary: Taking a leaf out of the Sorting Hat's book we experience a true Dumbledore like challenge for the houses. SLASH DH
1. And so it begins

Disclaimer: looks around Anyone been living under a rock lately? Raise your hand if you REALLY think JKR would publish stories on when she could get these published and make money off them Looks around to see no hands raised Now that that's out of the way this WILL be SLASH, it WILL take a while to get to the actual "Romance" part of the story, Harry and Draco will NOT be jumping into bed to have hot slashy sex in the first 5 chapters – however the rating will stay as R so that I don't have to change it later.

A/N: I'm not going to do the whole Ron/Hermione thing, I don't write het well, however Ron WILL have a pairing as will Hermione evil grin And now on with the story

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THUD

"Huh? Wha-" Harry broke off his confused burblings when he realised that the noise he had heard was Errol – again – missing the open window and crashing into the wall.

"Bloody crazy bird, why don't you just show up at breakfast with the rest of the owls?" Ron muttered, extracting himself from the sheets of his bed.

"Maybe Weasley, he didn't want to wait that long"

"Sure Malfoy, there's suddenly something desperately urgent going on at the BURROW that couldn't wait another 2 hours"

Malfoy? Here in Gryffindor? Harry was confused now like never before and fumbled towards his dresser looking for his glasses. Not finding them he sat up and opened his eyes

"Holy mother of god"

"Potter? What's wrong?"

Now things were getting VERY strange, Ron was calling him Potter, Malfoy was in the room, he could SEE without his glasses on and the décor looked decidedly, well, blue, and silver not the usual scarlet and gold.

"I think I'm just going to stay here in bed until I'm properly awake"

Malfoy and Weasley exchanged a look, Weasley not really understanding what was going on with our Harry at all, then all of a sudden it was like someone had switched on a light – funnily enough because that's EXACTLY what happened.

"Bloody hell Zabini, did you HAVE to do that, we've got to get Potter back up to speed on what's going on, he's forgotten our wise headmasters newest plan AGAIN" Malfoy drawled at the French boy.

"Again? Cripes Potter that's the fourth time this week and we've only being doing this for 2 days"

"Alright alright just will SOMEBODY explain to me why you two are here, why the hell Ron's calling me Potter and WHY AM I IN RAVENCLAW?????"

At this Blaise and Ron fell on their respective beds laughing and Draco made his way slowly across to Harry's bed.

"Ok Harry James Potter, listen and listen WELL this time. Our esteemed headmaster took what the silly bloody sorting hat said to heart and he decided that the best way to foster that Interhouse unity crap was to shuffle everyone up all over the bloody castle. We were all assigned new dorm mates, the castle somehow reshuffled itself so now instead of having four houses having separate dorms, we have about a hundred separate, 2 bedroom dorms, each with shared bathrooms, common rooms and believe it or not, kitchens. The way this whole system works is that each student was given a choice of partners to be roomed with, you and Weasley chose each other, I chose Zabini because there was no WAY I was getting stuck with Crabbe and Goyle they're thicker than two planks, and across the hallway we also have Abbot and Bones from Hufflepuff and Brocklehurst and MacDougal from Ravenclaw. As to why the usage of surnames, it's how it seems to work in the dorms, we call each other by first names in the hallways and classrooms because we don't have a choice, Bloody Dumbledore has put a charm on them meaning we call EVERYONE by their first names outside of our dorms, so we rather like using surnames in dorms as it was decided that it was rather less confusing, and so that we still remember them"

Harry was, by this stage looking rather dumbstruck.

"For the sake of all of our ears Malfoy, I think I've figured out why Potter gets confused. Baby steps is what you need to take here" Blaise drawled.

"Potter. We're rooming in Ravenclaw because Dumbledore said so ok?"

Harry focused on Blaise, still looking rather spaced out.

"Bugger this, I TOLD you guys it wasn't a good idea to fix his eyesight while he was sleeping" Ron exclaimed "Harry mate, these goons have somehow, and I don't really want to know how they did it, but they corrected your vision, that's why you don't need your glasses, Dumbledore shuffled the entire school around for that inter house unity crap, and we're not really in Ravenclaw, but you and I refused to sleep in a room full of Slytherin colours, they wouldn't sleep in a room of Gryffindor colours and they kinda clash so we went with Ravenclaw colours as it's fairly neutral territory – you're not telling me you'd prefer Hufflepuff would you?" at this Ron looked at Harry in pure horror

Harry blinked as what the three boys told him finally sank in to his sleep fogged brain, then burst out laughing.

"Harry mate?"

"Potter?"

Draco looked at Harry in amusement "Potter if you don't knock that off I'm going to be forced to snog you senseless"

Ron and Blaise looked horrified at this but Harry, our poor misguided Harry pulled Draco to him and laughed harder

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End Chapter One

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A/N: Mwahahaha You though I was lying and I was going to get into the slashy goodness early didn't you? Nuh uh!


	2. Now what's he up to?

**For disclaimer see chapter 1**

**A/N:** Thank you to my reviewers! I'm not going to use my word limits to thank reviewers, I'm just going to say thanks to all of you, even the ones who call me insane. I was going to wait until I had ten reviews, but couldn't wait any longer  That first chapter was a touch short wasn't it? Oh well, they'll get longer.

Snippet from Chapter one to place you

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Harry blinked as what the three boys told him finally sank in to his sleep fogged brain, then burst out laughing.

"Harry mate?"

"Potter?"

Draco looked at Harry in amusement "Potter if you don't knock that off I'm going to be forced to snog you senseless"

Ron and Blaise looked horrified at this but Harry, our poor misguided Harry pulled Draco to him and laughed harder

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Ron and Blaise looked at each other in horror then jumped to pull Harry and Draco apart.

"WHAT IS GOING ON??????"

Apart from a few more giggles from Harry, the four boys went totally silent and turned towards the door, peering at the figure there

"Ah, Professor Snape, well you see, um what I'm trying to say is –"

"Oh shut up Weasley, let me take a wild stab at what's happened now" Snape bit out sarcastically "Potter has, once again, forgotten what the Headmaster planned for this year, Malfoy and Zabini have perfected the _Oris Resitutio_ spell that they've been working on for over a year since Malfoy decided that Potter needed a makeover"

"Professor Snape! How could you? I told you that in CONFIDENCE" Draco looked absolutely shocked at his secret being let out.

"Oh honestly Malfoy, did you REALLY think that your secret was going to STAY that way once Potter opened his trunk, AND saw the way your section of the dorm is set up? I mean seriously Draco it'll be around the school in an hour that you swing our way." Blaise smirked evilly at his friend "Besides, while the Slytherins would keep your secret to the grave, once Dumbledore set this plan in motion, it couldn't HELP but come out, you know there's no restrictions on the girls coming in now, and after the make-up tips you've been giving Pansy for years did you really think that you'd be able to restrain yourself from giving the same advice to our dorm mates?"

Draco was mortified by what Blaise had said absolutely mortified, and for once he showed it. Ron looked at him like he'd grown another head but Harry…. Well he still looked like he was about to start laughing hysterically again.

"What's wrong with you Weasley? Afraid my gayness is catching?"

"No Malfoy, actually I was wondering why I hadn't noticed before, I mean, no straight guy acts the way you do, nibbles from hippogriffs putting you in the hospital wing for days, falling off your broom during Quidditch putting you in for hours, I'm surprised I didn't see it before actually."

"Entertaining as it is to listen to you two discuss your love lives" Snape interrupted "I am actually here to inform you that Dumbledore wants ALL sixth years to report to the Great Hall in 5 minutes, in _formal dress robes_. Do I make myself clear?"

Blaise and Ron nodded, Harry just looked dumbstruck, but Draco, well… to put it bluntly he started running around as if he was a chicken with its head cut off.

"Five minutes isn't long enough to get into formal dress, five minutes isn't even long enough to do my hair, not to mention try and get Potter looking like something that DIDN'T come out of a rag bag – mmmph"

Blaise looked at Draco over the hand he had clapped over his mouth. "Magic Malfoy, magic. USE it you insufferable git"

In no time at all the four boys were ready to descend to the hall and receive whatever jewels of wisdom Professor Dumbledore had decided required their being in dress robes at this hour so they went.

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"- And that is why I called you all down here. Thank you children, please enjoy your breakfast"

With that Dumbledore sat down and the food appeared on the tables that were – at least to Harry, very strangely set up. Gone were the four house tables, in their place were a whole lot of eight seater round tables, at which there were two students from each house at. Yes, Harry's brain still hasn't caught up with the last few days, he still doesn't quite understand why he has to share a dorm with Malfoy and Zabini.

"Can you believe what he's got planned now Harry?"

Harry just looked at Ron like his friend had grown an extra head. "Which part Ron? The abolishing of houses or the rest of it?"

That's right, Dumbledore had decided that it would be a good idea to abolish the houses completely as the experiment with the room shuffling seemed to have worked (Honestly you'd think he would have given it a FULL week rather than just a couple of days but this IS Dumbledore we're talking about), he'd also decided that since there were to be no more houses, Quidditch wouldn't be needed anymore (Harry, Draco and Ron thought they could talk him around on this part though), no more house points to be awarded, no more house cup. Oh no, now it was to be DORM points, and a dorm cup, so in order to win, the eight students sharing a dorm would have to cooperate fully, not fight with each other and of all horrors (At least in Draco's point of view) CLEAN UP AFTER THEMSELVES. That's right, Dumbledore had decided to make our teenagers take a little responsibility for themselves and start picking up their own clothes, house elves would still be laundering their clothes, and cooking for them, but they would be doing the cleaning of their dorms themselves.

Just as the students were finishing up breakfast, a bell rang – yet another idea of Dumbledore's.

"All right students, you now have you schedules, please make your way to class"

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End Chapter Two

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**A/N**: So what class first hmm?? It is a Wednesday for this lot after all…. You'll have to wait and see. All reviewers shall receive one of my patented Choco!Characters of their choice just for reviewing!


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